If it looks like the opportunity to act might disappear, it can be better not to wait.
In 2012, University of Rochester researcher Celeste Kidd published a study that challenged that marshmallow experiment. When she was younger, Kidd spent time working for homeless shelters — she remembers wondering how growing up in such an unstable situation would affect decision-making.
Those kids, she thought, would eat the marshmallow right away.
But not because they didn't have enough willpower. Rather, they grew up in situations where you they couldn't trust adults to follow through on their promises.
"Our results definitely temper the popular perception that marshmallow-like tasks are very powerful diagnostics for self-control capacity," Kidd said. "Delaying gratification is only the rational choice if the child believes a second marshmallow is likely to be delivered after a reasonably short delay."
In Kidd’s study, children were primed to think that researchers were reliable or unreliable. In one part of the study, the experimenter gave the kids a piece of paper and crayons, telling the child to use those art supplies or wait for better ones. Then came the twist: for one group of students, the experimenter brought back markers and crayons; for the other, the experimenter came back and apologized, saying there weren’t any nicer art supplies.
Then came the marshmallow test. The nine of the 14 kids from the “reliable” set were able to wait 15 minutes for the second marshmallow, but just one of the 14 waited it out.
The lesson: what looks like willpower might also be trust.